MTN Group is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) and on Friday announced the launch of Africa’s ‘first’ Mobile Money (MoMo) AI service or “chatbot”.
The mobile phone giant said the chatbot went live in Ivory Coast in May and will be rolled out across its MoMo footprint in the next few months.
The AI mobile money “assistant” enables customers to engage with MTN’s MoMo services, including payments, on various social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and via SMS.
The company also said the service will also be included over time, in MTN’s own newly released advanced instant messaging service “Ayoba”.
The chatbot is an AI guide that assists users to navigate MTN’s MoMo services and provide other useful information.
This innovation leverages messaging and AI to drive customer engagement and enhance their MTN MoMo experience, said the company.
“We are passionate about bringing the power of our mobile money solutions to more than 60 million customers across Africa over the next few years. Harnessing modern technologies like artificial intelligence can improve in scale, how MTN interacts with customers, enabling them to reach us anytime and anywhere, through a variety of channels including social networks and messaging applications. We can also harness the power of artificial intelligence to provide our customers with the right answers to their questions at the right time.,” said MTN CEO, Rob Shuter.
“We are committed to improving financial inclusion with a range of solutions aimed at addressing the needs of various market segments. While MTN has made great strides in these areas, we will continue working to deliver our vision for MTN to become one of the largest Fintech players across our footprint.”